Simon Pockley wrote:
> On Oct 28, 10:16am, Diane I. Hillmann wrote:
>
> > As for the idea that we will take an irrecoverable hit politically if we
> > change now--hogwash! Many years of observation (and participation) in the
> > maintenance process for the MARC standard has convinced me that there is no
> > time like the present to fix what doesn't work. The important piece is to
> > make sure there's an upgrade path for those who have data "the old way,"
> > and this is clearly the case for the three-element to one we're proposing
> > here.
>
> I think this is an important point Diane.
> It is interesting to see the way that the need for stability
> acts to resist change, when change is our only certainly.
As a software developer, can I just point out that change is the most annoying
thing in the world (short of actual _users_).
If we really must go ahead and merge these three fields in DC Simple, let's at
least call it "DC 2" or "DC1998". Then people can make a choice about which
version they're going to use. Have a think about it - will DC really be "easier"
to use if all contributors to an information resource are listed in the one
field? What about the poor fool who's trying to find all documents authored by a
particular person (as opposed to edited by, or printed/published by)? Unless we
use DC Qualified, always DC Qualified and only DC Qualified, we will need three
fields in order to provide some delineation in the roles of the contributors. At
which point, we can dispose with this outdated anachronism that is DC Simple (who
wants stuff to be simple, anyway?), and rename the DC Qualified to
DC/DC2/DC1998/whatever.
> `Credits' are now more freqently used
> to decribe the possible allocation of micropayment
> when it comes to the use of the resource and the continuing interest
> of the contributor, publisher and creator.
Is it really the role of a Metadata record to specify who gets paid for the use
of a resource? Isn't that the role of the library manager/management software?
Different companies will have different means of payment - micropayment, time
based licences, subscription to journal versions, etc. The DC metadata may
specify a link to a "How To Pay" page, but the DC metadata should not have a
field explicitly for "cost". I know this probably isn't what you were inferring
from your message.
Regards,
Alex
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